Review of Harry Brown (2009) by Jeff M — 19 Oct 2011

"It's not Northern Ireland Harry.".

"No it's not. Those people were fighting for something; for a cause. To them out there, this is just entertainment.".

Violent, but still good nothing-the-less.

Plot: After his best friend is killed at the hands of a London street gang in which the detectives canâ(TM)t convict those involved, and seeing that the police wonâ(TM)t do anything about the skyrocketing crime in the neighborhood in which he lives, an elderly former Royal Marine who has just lost his wife decides to take justice into his own hands using brutal techniques he learned in the military. His actions and those of the street thugs will lead to something more destructive than anyone could imagine. Not your typical run of the mil vigilante movie. Michael Caine is outstanding in this. Caineâ(TM)s character has lost everyone heâ(TM)s ever cared, his wife, his daughter, and his best friend. Heâ(TM)s completely destitute. He sees how bad things have gotten and sets out to change it when the police ignore it. And thatâ(TM)s what makes you root for him. No matter how good a man is, he still has his breaking point. The film shows the ugly side of humanity; people killing the defenseless just for fun and showing no remorse for what they did and the frightening thing is, is that most of the people doing this horrific stuff are teenagers. My problem with the movie is this; Emily Mortimer plays the same generic character that is in every vigilante movie ( i.e. Detective who has suspensions about the main character, but doesnâ(TM)t do anything because he or she believes that the main character is right in a sense); Terrence Howard in The Brave One, Aisha Tyler in Death Sentence, the list goes on and on. Still Mortimer does fantastic. My other problem is that there is sort of a twist near the end, but the character involved in the twist isnâ(TM)t that developed and is only seen a brief times before it. All of the violence in this movie is very sudden, shocking, and at times brutal. There was a quick scene at the very beginning that bothered me. Itâ(TM)s more violent than The Brave One and almost as violent as Death Sentence. All in all a good movie despite some pretty violent scenes and a few flaws. Total Score: 6.8/10.